When a Heart Breaks
by stardust2002
Summary: Songfic set to Rik Emmett's 'That's the sound that a heart makes, when a heart breaks'. SamDee POV's. Spoilers through all of season 3.


_**When a Heart Breaks**_

**oooooooooooo**

_**An old song on the radio**_

_**A faded dream from long ago**_

_**The phone is ringing but the message can't get through**_

Caprica seems like so long ago now. Another lifetime ... perhaps another life. Someone else's life, certainly not mine.

We were full of hope, life, the certainty that what we had transcended the barriers that stood between us. We were from such different worlds, despite the fact that we were both Caprican natives, but yet we were so similar. The moment we met I knew it as surely as if it were something hard-wired in me at birth. It came as no surprise the first time I looked in her eyes and I saw myself staring disdainfully, perhaps even haughtily back at me. She was the mirror image of myself, my doppelganger if you will, and I knew the gods, if they existed, had brought us together for a reason.

Now she hardly even speaks to me. I've tried talking with her but she won't even listen to me. Nothing seems to get through to her ... even sex. I try letting actions speak louder than words but still it only goes so far then hits a brick wall.

I knew the wall was there when we first started getting to know each other - hell, I've got a pretty big one myself - but I thought she'd let me into her private retreat once we were married. I thought I was special - that I held the key to the mystery that is Kara Thrace.

I was wrong. The mystery is still unsolved and only one person holds the key - if only he knew it.

Lee Adama.

_**Whisper on the wind as the sun goes down**_

_**A teardrop crashes to the ground and**_

Now she's gone. I've got nothing left of her except her frakking idols and a few items of clothing. And apparently I'm lucky to be getting that - the pilots usually auction off each other's things after they've died, so I should be happy I've gotten anything that belonged to the great 'Starbuck'.

I never really wanted to believe it was over between us. She ended it when we came back here after New Caprica, but I thought it was just a reaction to what had happened to her in captivity. She never talked much about it but I gather it was horrifying. She could have talked to me. She could have come to me for support and love and I would have been there for her, one hundred percent. But no, that's not Kara Thrace's style. She doesn't depend on anyone for anything ... didn't depend on anyone ... now she doesn't have to anymore, she's gone to join the gods she prayed to so religiously.

I can't believe she's gone. Gone, gone and gotten herself frakking blown up. Now I have nothing. No more chances, no more what ifs.

Kara Thrace is gone forever and despite our rocky relationship I feel like I've lost the most important part of me.

My heart.

_**That's the sound that a heart makes when a heart breaks**_

_**That's the sound that a heart makes when a heart breaks**_

_**Two people crying over broken vows**_

_**A door slams shut on an empty house**_

_**It echoes on down where the well is running dry**_

It all seems like so long ago. It was fun, we were happy ... then it all went wrong.

"We're quite a pair," he said to me, reassuring me after our little talk about Starbuck. She always seemed to come up in conversation, like Apollo and Starbuck were a pair somehow and one couldn't exist without the other. He knew talking about her upset me though - how could it not? The whole ship watched as they did their little dance around each other, marking their territory but never truly claiming what was theirs. He knew I was afraid it wasn't over and that given half a chance he'd go back to their little game, so he tried to convince me it was just us. That everything would be okay.

I should have known it wasn't when his proposal came on the heels of her rejection. The words were spoken believably - he loved me and wanted to make a life with me, but the truth was there in his eyes.

Eyes that can't lie.

He still loved her. He didn't really want me, he just wanted to prove to her that her rejection didn't leave him alone.

He was good to me; I can't complain about that but it was a loveless marriage. It hurts to admit it but it's true - I don't think I ever really loved him either.

_**Words lost in sentences we can't understand **_

_**A ring is slipping off my finger and slipping through my hands and**_

I loved the idea of him - Lee Adama, Apollo, the upright, upstanding officer who always did the right thing and put others before himself. And there's no denying he filled the uniform awfully well too ... though that changed drastically while _she_ was gone.

I'd like to be able to blame everything on her. All of it - Lee's distant attitude, his eating problem, lack of motivation and final desertion of everything I hold dear ... but I can't. Yes, she _is_ part of the problem but now that I can look at it objectively I'd have to say she was just the catalyst.

Lee was already a broken man, I just didn't want to see it.

Our marriage is over now. Once I wanted it over, now he does. And honestly, I'm not even sure what I want anymore. I want that ideal back - the man I thought he was, but he's changed and I'm not even sure who he is now. The only thing I do know for certain is now that _she's_ back he isn't even going to give me a second glance.

She's his world. Always has been, always will be. She may slowly destroy him when they're together but the process is greatly accelerated when they're apart. I can't understand what it is they share even though he tried to explain it to me. Something foreign, alien, that I can't even begin to understand no matter what words he might use.

I gave my ring back already, back to the communal supply so the next happy couple that thinks they've got a future together can use it.

All I've got left are regrets. And tears.

_**Blue notes on an old guitar**_

_**The silent fire of a distant star**_

I can't believe she's gone. She's gone.

Gone.

I always thought ... assumed ... _knew_ she'd give us another chance if I just waited long enough and didn't push. Now that chance is gone and all I've got left of her is to live the way _she_ would have lived had it been someone she loved who'd died. I can drink away the pain, pretend I don't care and sleep with whatever women come my way.

Strangely enough there are a few - not that I'm unattractive; I had plenty of women back in my pyramid playing days, but I'm a grieving widower now - you'd think they'd wait some sort of respectful time before coming on to me. Maybe they already knew how difficult and distant my relationship with Kara was and figured her death wouldn't mean anything to me.

They'd be wrong.

_**The unforgiving rhythm of November rain**_

_**Rivers that are running down a broken window pane**_

My heart used to flutter whenever he'd look at me and I had wild dreams of what it would be like to be with him, be his wife.

I'd walk on his arm proudly, basking in the reverent glances like I was a queen. And I would be - consort to prince Lee, heir to the Adama legacy. One day we would run the fleet together, he and I, side by side and all the other women would wish they were me.

It never worked that way, even from day one. They looked at us when we were together for sure, but it was looks of wonder and surprise, as though they couldn't believe_ I_ was the one with him.

Starbuck should have been the one. Starbuck and Apollo. Even when she was gone, left the military, left Galactica for good, her presence was still here ... still with him.

I can't compete with it. I'm lost before I even begin.

All I ever wanted to be was a princess. To find a knight in shining armour who'd defend me and cherish me forever. I thought I'd found him in Lee but I was wrong.

Even Lee saw _her _when he looked at me. I was never really there.

_**That's the sound that a heart makes**_

_**When a heart breaks**_

I see the dirty looks people give me. Especially_ him_. Like he should be one to judge. At least I'm not sleeping with other men's wives.

I know they all think I'm the lowest of the scum for moving on so quickly. They think I never really loved her - that I was just there for the sex.

How wrong they are!

I loved Kara Thrace, heart and soul, and if I'm with other women now it's not because I want to be but because I can't stand being alone. Her ghost constantly haunts me and I get no peace. I know I should have done things differently - if I had maybe she'd still be alive.

This ... this is the sound that a heart makes when a heart breaks. My heart.

_**That's the sound that a heart makes**_

_**When a heart breaks**_

I slink around like a ghost now. No one sees me. I don't want them to. I saw enough pity in their eyes to last me a lifetime. I can't bear that anymore.

Maybe I did love him. And maybe I don't know what love really is. Either way I've lost him. Though really, now I look back I'm realizing he wasn't really mine to lose. He was only on loan.

His heart belongs to her.

_**That's the sound that a heart makes**_

_**When a heart breaks**_

_**That's the sound that a heart makes**_

_**When a heart breaks**_

_ fin _


End file.
